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MD: Of all the fantastic images Powell•Peralta has produced; what’s your favourite graphic that you’ve ever produced?
GP: Oooooh…. It’s either the ripper or the skull and sword. My two favourite graphics of all time.
MD: Have you ever produced a board that you yourself did not like?
GP: You know…during the 90s when disposable boards were going through and the market was down and people were just making very small lots of things and
throwing it out onto the market; we did a few boards that I really didn’t feel particularly comfortable with or like and I had to relax my
"iron-fisted" hold on the art department to allow less than great stuff to go through.
MD: Is there an example you can give me?
GP: I’d have to go back in time because we haven’t operated that way… it’s been like 20 years. I can’t think back 20 years in that detail. [laughs]
Besides, you forget things you didn’t like and remember the good stuff anyway.
Hawk Medallion deck
MD: OK. There’s this one thing… the graphic direction was very consistent and then came along that Tony Hawk with the medallion graphic. When you
read through the Sean Cliver book...
GP: You mean the hawk head? The original Hawk skull?
MD: No! The one with those weird tribal patterns and the cross hatching along the edge. It’s such a departure and it sounded actually as though this
was Stacy’s idea to get away from Courts’ design style with the skulls and do something very abstract.
GP: Yeah there was a time when Stacy felt as though we’d gone as far as we could go with Court’s graphics. And I didn’t feel that way but he did and
that’s another area where we had conflict. So yeah, Stacy wanted to try some other directions and things and I always let him do it you know? Craig
Staecyk’s vato rat, I actually liked. That was one of them. Towards the end of Tony’s tenure with us, we were generating graphics faster and faster.
Some of them were not great. We did the best we could, but the pressure to produce overcame our ability to generate great graphics.
Cab Dragon & Bats deck
MD: The ones I’m thinking about too are when people end up doing their own designs. Steve [Caballero]’s got a very iconic image of a dragon that
really stands out as his theme but recently he’s been into all these hotrods. I’m just wondering from a sales perspective, does that work? But at
the same time, can you say to a pro "No you can’t do what you want as your image"?
GP: At this point in Steve’s career we very seldom say no to Steve if he wants to do something. He’s a skilled enough artist that I just go
"That’s great". I’m stoked!
MD: Can you tell me about what it was like when the market collapsed the way it did in the early 90s?
GP: It was a hellish nightmare! Perhaps it is like an airplane with full fuel tanks, a full load, and a dead engine at high altitude. You have energy,
but no new power, and you wonder if you can guide yourself to a safe landing somewhere where you can repair your engine? You keep trying to restart
your engine (marketing) as you glide, but you are losing more altitude than you want because you are heavy with fuel (our brand new 180,000 square
foot headquarters). Ultimately, you don’t make the airfield because you can’t jettison the fuel to extend your glide. You crash land and then start
to pick up the pieces.
It has taken us 15 years to put them back together again and take off. Can you say "flight of the phoenix"? When you crash, many people
get injured, and some seriously. Our team, our employees, our bank, and I, all suffered significant losses. You pretty much have to go through
something like that to understand the magnitude and intensity of it. It teaches many lessons, but they are painful ones.
Steve Rocco
MD: Is there any pleasure in the knowledge that you’re still in the game and Rocco is gone?
GP: Somebody else asked me that question recently and I came up with an answer that I liked. It was essentially that I think we both got what we wanted. He got rich and retired and left… and I get to stay and make skateboards. So I got what I wanted and he got what he wanted.
Bearings
Wheels
MD: One thing that's changed over the years is Bones wheels and bearings have become distinct companies on their own. What prompted that decision?
GP: In a way, this is part of the Rocco revolution’s heritage of clusters of small brands instead of monolithic ones. I fought this for many years,
but finally, a gradual dawning of the advantage of this approach came to me, largely at the prodding of Michael Furukawa, who had become our marketing
manager. Since then we have instituted a brand management group and been quite successful at building brands like BONES Wheels, Bones Bearings, and
Powell•Peralta; even though Powell Skateboards was still under attack from many competitors.
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